


Perthro

by Dream Mender (Llewcie)



Category: The Dresden Files - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, reverse verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:37:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5876383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llewcie/pseuds/Dream%20Mender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An embittered ghost seizes a chance to end a string of bloody infanticides in the House Bainbridge when he strikes a deal with the Lady, and charms a young boy with a knack for understanding things far beyond his ken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perthro

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written in the late 2000's, in the delightfully creative A-Boy-And-His-Skull forums on LJ. It was the product of everyone's shared imagination, but for this one, especially Pinkdoom and Edana Ni Emer. We were all deep in it, but Pinkdoom was the one who wrote the skull fucking fic, so take what you like from that.
> 
> No, i don't have a copy of the skull fucking fic. I wish i did *laughs*

Perthro is the Wyrd-- the twisting fate, the dice cup. It's what can happen, what could have happened, what will happen, and what might happen. It's the road not taken, and the road not taken yet.  
  
  
  
**Trade**  
  
“Dresden!”  
  
“My Lady is not recovered. She should not be exerting herself.” The tall figure did not exit from the dark corner in which he stood, and the woman raised a feeble hand in protest.  
  
“Dresden, I am in no mood for your cheek. They would not tell me the gender of the child. I insist that you do. I will find out eventually; blood and ashes!” The woman, pale and dark-haired, was an ominous presence even prone on her back and recovering from a difficult birthing. The child had indeed been ushered out by the nursemaids as soon as it was birthed, saving it, at least, from dying in the birthing chamber.  
  
He sighed. “It is a boy, my Lady. A fine-featured lad. Might I humbly request that you reconsider?”  
  
The room grew dark, and Dresden felt the lashes of dark magic closing in around him. Even incorporeal, he could feel the ugliness of her cruelty. His mind was racing, but he felt that he would not be quick enough, as he had failed at the last birthings to save the male offspring of the Lady Bainbridge. She sat up feebly in bed, her beautiful features distorted by a harsh scowl. “Dresden, honestly—if your charms would work and I could produce a girl, then there would be nothing to worry about.”  
  
He waved his hands helplessly. “I would prefer that you did not use such things at all. It was a terrible risk, as I told you, and it has gone wrong. You have given birth to a fine boy. He might prove useful to you, my Lady.”  
  
At the word ‘useful’ a speculative look had entered the Lady’s expression, and Dresden felt chills soak down his spine. She narrowed her eyes, and nodded. “Indeed, if he does turn out to be a mage, I could use him to barter my debt…” She turned newly shining eyes to Dresden. “Just think, free of the curse that keeps us from returning to England. Forgiven by Mab, all for the price of a worthless boy. Yes! You are brilliant, Dresden. Indeed, he shall live.”  
  
Dresden forced himself to swallow, and smile. “You are the brilliant one, my Lady."  
  
“To return home, free of our exile.” Lady Bainbridge collapsed back into her bed, looking sated and exhausted. “Come, bring the child. He has nothing to fear from me.” She clapped her hands, and Dresden bowed, feeling his tether pull. She had positioned his skull so that he could come no further into the room, and for now it suited him just fine. As he left to alert the nursemaids to bring the child, he was aware that he had won only a temporary stay of execution for the boy, and a tenuous one, at that.  
  
  
  
**Naming Day**  
  
“Come out, Ghost.” A sharp female voice rang across the empty room, but the thin boy under the hand of its owner did not wince—even in his few years, he had had much practice under the sharp lash of his mother’s tongue. Being a blood relation did not make him safe. A long lock of light brown hair had escaped from behind his ear, and it was now tickling his nose, but he did not move to rescue it. Dignity and poise was everything; this was, after all, his Naming Day.  
  
Darkness and bold streaks of red and gold coalesced into the slim figure of a dark-eyed, long-limbed man, not more than a mortal forty, with neatly-trimmed dark brown hair and a lush, expressive mouth which was set in a perpetual frown. The ghost wore an impeccably tailored Prince Albert frock coat of midnight blue cashmere—the hem falling mid thigh—and matching trousers, and he wore soft-looking kidskin gloves of deep grey on his hands. His heeled patent shoes shone back reflections that had nothing to do with the room he stood in now, and the child tried not to stare—he knew what dark things lurked in the realm of the Nevernever, and feared. The ghost raised an eyebrow but did not speak. Finally, after a cold silence, the woman did.  
  
“Dresden; my son.” Her voice held all the warmth of a midday ice storm on the moors. Colder, even, than usual. The child felt ill at ease, but his expression did not change.  
  
“How old?” Limpid eyes did not drop to examine the boy, nor did the ghost shift even a thread from his initial stance.  
  
“Seven, as you well know.” Impatience. The boy drew in a deep breath, and felt a hard squeeze on his thin shoulder.  
  
“Has he shown the Gift?” The ghost spoke with a cheerful sort of insolence, as if he already knew the answer. The boy felt his cheeks flush with shame.  
  
“He will.”  
  
The ghost turned away. “I can’t be bothered with this.”  
  
With such a dismissal, the boy’s heart plummeted the short drop to his perfectly shined boots. It was not merely that his mother would not teach him. Not even a ghost bound to a relic found him interesting enough to school in the Ways. He felt a hot tear brimming over the rim of his pale eyes, and fought it down. He would not _he would not_ weep in front of either of these two demons.  
  
The hand clenched more tightly—hard enough to hurt, and the boy welcomed the pain now, as a distraction to ease the ache of his humiliation.  
  
"You shall have all the time you require. You are freed from your duties with me, Dresden, so that you may attend to my son. Teach the boy the Ways.”  
  
Dresden considered for a moment, the silence palpable. The errant lock of hair tickled the boy’s nose, and his cheeks burned, and his heart ached, but he didn’t dare move. He knew this silence all too well. After a lifetime, the ghost nodded once. “As you command, myLady.”  
  
The hand dropped, and the woman left the room in a discontented clicking of heels and swish of heavy, stiff silks, the mermaid hem of her dress sweeping across the dustless floor in a threatening whisper. They stood for a moment in her aftermath, the child and the ghost—the child staring fixedly at the coat-hem of the latter. Then the ghost, Dresden, crouched down to catch the boy’s eye, and there was something there in his expression that the boy did not expect.  
  
Triumph.  
  
Then, gently, Dresden ghosted his fingertips through the fallen curl against the boy’s cheek. “What is your name, my young Master?” he queried, and there was a softness to his voice that had been entirely missing from his dealings with the Lady.  
  
The child shuffled for a moment, uncertain whether he liked the ticklish, icy brush of the ghost’s manifestation across his cheek. Remembering the harsh squeeze of his mother’s hand, he rather thought this might be what the nameless others that kept the house and whispered in the shadows referred to as kindness. He blinked solemnly and spoke for the first time in the presence of the ghost. “Robert, sir.”  
  
Dresden nodded solemnly back. “Do not address me as ‘sir’, young Master Robert, in the house of Bainbridge. It will get us both into trouble.” And the ghost _smiled._ He had a sweet smile that lit up his eyes. Robert blinked for a moment, uncertain how to respond to such a display. Then, of their own accord, his bow lips turned up at the corners, very hesitantly. Dresden chuckled, and brushed his lips softly over Robert’s forehead in a phantasm’s kiss, before straightening slowly.  
  
“Come, young Master. Our first lesson will be on your letters.”  
  
“I know my letters, Dresden,” the child said archly.  
  
“Ah, but do you know your Greek?”  
  
“Of course! And Latin, and Runic—all the Futharks, of course. I already read French, Spanish, English, and German, and we’ve begun Chinese—I can write nearly five hundred characters, Dresden!” Robert’s squeaky voice had taken on more than a hint of smugness by the end of his recital.  
  
“Sanskrit? Hieroglyphics? Coptic? Tsalagee? ”  
  
The boy’s face fell, and Dresden smiled down at him. “I think we will have much excuse to spend time in each other’s company, my young Master Robert.”  
  
The child peered up at him as they crossed the threshold into the library. “Am I your master now, Dresden?”  
  
Dresden looked at him, taking in the pale eyes and fine features of the boy who would be Robert Bainbridge, Wizard and Lord of the manor and estate... when they were allowed to return to England, of course. He studied the translucent skin of a child who had hardly ever played outside, and noted the depth of intelligence already apparent in the way Robert took everything in, and processed all without acting on it. Finally, he nodded. “You will be. Right now, I am your teacher. It is you mother who masters me, at the moment.” A scowl colored the last few words, and he made no effort to hide it.  
  
Robert cocked his head, loosing yet another strand of brown in the process. “Dresden, do you have another Name?”  
  
Dresden blinked at him, all thought stopped. In a sweeping wave of light, he manifested in a kneeling position so that he could look the child in the eye. For a moment they just stared at each other, dark eyes to light. Dresden pursed his lips. “Robert… I am Dresden. I have no other Name. Do you understand?”  
  
Robert nodded, and then lifted his small hand to touch the ghost’s cheek. His fingertips danced along the border of Dresden’s manifestation, sparking and glinting. “I won’t tell,” he whispered.  
  
Dresden gave him a tiny half smile, after a moment. “That secret isn’t worth your life, mon cher.” He kissed the boy again, and this time, Robert giggled as Dresden’s icy manifestation swept across his mouth and cheeks. They both enjoyed a private smile, and then Dresden straightened, leading his young charge on towards the library, where they would learn the secrets that had been paid for with other people’s lives.  
  
At least for today.  
  
  
**Context**  
  
“Which star is that?” Robert, a slim-waisted nine years of age, squinted as he pointed at the spangled heavens. Dresden ducked around his steady index finger in an attempt to triangulate, his nose and lips brushing through the boy’s unbound curls.  
  
“Which star is what? Your finger could be indicating any of a thousand in that particular section of sky, my young Lord Robert.” Dresden smirked, and Robert scowled at his finger before dropping it and diving for his charts.  
  
After scanning them fruitlessly for a moment, he glanced up at the ghost, who was watching him with a gentle expression of interest. “How did you ever figure out the stars, Dresden? Out of countless thousands, how do you choose one and hang a navigation or a prediction from it?”  
  
White hands flashed as Dresden rubbed his chin. His face and hands were the only things that were visible in the black frock coat, dark grey vest and black trousers he wore tonight. The high peak of his patricide collar was almost concealed by the lush silk ascot, also dark, that folded over his throat-space. Robert had often envied Dresden his dark eyes that gave away nothing of his emotions… in this darkness, they seemed fathomless. Dresden hummed, and pursed his lips, bowing closer as if imparting a secret.  
  
“Well, stars make sense only as part of a greater whole. Take for instance, Orion. Four point stars, the Belt, and within that, many identifiable clusters of others, made significant only because they lie within the constellation of Orion. If I were to ask you to find, say, Bellatrix, could you with fair ease?”  
  
“Certainly, my dear Dresden.” Robert spoke with the weight of a man far older, his eyebrow raising with a hint of scorn, as if such a request were beneath his blood. “But not tonight.”  
  
Dresden smiled playfully. “But the sky is perfectly clear, my young lord.”  
  
Robert gave him an exasperated frown. “Yes, and it’s _summer_ , my _lord Ghost_ , Orion being a winter constellation.”  
  
His grin broadening, Dresden bowed at his young charge. “Ah. Now I think you are beginning to see.”  
  
“That you didn’t pay attention to your Astronomy teacher?” Robert’s lips pursed in a cheeky bow that Dresden found entirely too endearing for his own good.  
  
“Mock me not, little lord Whippet. What you are beginning to recognize is _context_. Without context, the stars are meaningless, just as without context, the behaviours of people mean nothing.” He crouched down. “Tell me what Giselle did this morning?”  
  
Robert frowned, his eyes losing some of their spark. “She brought back the breakfast tray untouched from my Lady’s room.”  
  
Dresden nodded. “And what does this tell you, in the context of your mother’s customary habits?” He raised his chin slightly, unconsciously imitating the young boy before him.  
  
“That she is no longer putting up the effort to appear as if she is well.” The boy’s voice sounded, all of the sudden, the voice of a child. Dresden cocked his head, longing to touch him. “Something is going to happen, isn’t it? Soon?”  
  
“Perhaps,” the ghost acknowledged. Robert was, as was necessary, unaware of his nocturnal activities, but the boy had been instrumental in the placement of Dresden’s skull directly below his mother’s bedroom when at last he had been forbidden to take it to bed with him, more than a year ago. Ostensibly it had been so that Dresden could come out to teach Astronomy lessons on the north tower, which was rather conveniently located within proximity to the Lady’s sleeping chambers.  
  
The only loss was that Dresden could not reach _Robert’s_ bedroom, and therefore could not Dream with _him_. Not that picking apart his sanity would be the ghost’s object in that; merely comfort. The child was far too young for anything else, besides.  
  
Dresden touched the chin of his charge, attempting to raise the mood. Harpy or not, the Lady was the mother of this boy, and her loss would be felt. Robert raised his brilliant green eyes to the ghost’s, and they gazed at each other for a moment. Then, with perfect composure, Robert reached out and stroked Dresden’s cheek. “Are you my angel, as well as my ghost, Dresden?” And then he gathered up his charts, and walked gracefully indoors, his tailored suit falling perfectly around his slim frame.  
  
Blinking in bemusement, Dresden felt the warm fingers of his young lord caress his skull on his way out of the library.

  
**Lord and Master**  
  
Dresden affected a stretch, aware that the boy’s eyes were on him. They had been studying thaumaturgy all morning, and while the young Lord technically had mastery of the house since the rather _untimely_ death of his mother five years ago, young Robert still deferred to Dresden on all things academic. And Dresden called for lunch at the same time every day, insisting on food, fresh air, and fencing lessons until mid-afternoon. If others in their community found it strange that the education of the young lord was being handled by an incorporeal tutor, they did not gossip loudly. Even in France, in Montmartre, where oddness was a daily chat at the front gate of their narrow retreat, the Bainbridge estate did not invite idle speculation. A maid that gossiped overlong tended to forget entirely her friends the next day, and some had not come out of the house again. It had a dark reputation, and not just because its inhabitants were English.  
  
Still, even though Dresden had called a halt to their lessons for the morning, the boy did not immediately go down to dinner. Lord Robert Bainbridge, a pale and sober boy of not-yet fifteen, fingered the ancient rune-carved skull curiously, watching the ghost out of the corner of his glass-green eyes. Dresden was pretending to read, dressed only in a black silk vest patterned with midnight blue butterflies over a crisp-looking white linen shirt and black wool trousers. His lithe frame, incorporeal though it was, lounged gracefully in a leather chair, and he drew his fingertips over the pages as he perused the words, the touch of his hand lighting up the book with golden fire-trails. His dark eyes, however, were at half-mast, watching the young lord play with the only corporeal piece of him left to the world.  
  
“Why are you trapped in this old relic, Dresden?” Robert palmed the skull entirely, picking it up for the first time since his childhood and settling it into his lap. At this intimate touch of Robert’s hand, the ghost closed his eyes, his lips slightly parted. It was a small tell, easily overlooked by anyone but the young lord, who had made a practice all his life of avoiding the wrath of his elders by judging their moods by hairs and fractions. As well, for an old and practiced political player such as Dresden, the slip spoke volumes.  
  
Robert continued to stroke the skull, dragging his fingers over the old dry bone and marking the structure in his mind as he traced…frontal bone to coronal suture to parietal bone to… lamb-something suture to occipital bone, and then around the side to the intricate temporal bone. The texture under his fingers was worn and smooth like ivory in some places, and rough like sandpaper in others. At the gash in the back, that broke open both carvings and parietal bone, he fingered the edge gently, careful not to splinter the fragile bone, warded or not. At his finger’s touch there, the ghost’s dark eyes slowly opened. The look of pure feral _want_ that Dresden fixed him with was enough to dry his mouth. His hand stilled.  
  
“Didn’t living with your mother teach you not to tease the caged lion, Robert?” Dresden’s voice was low and throaty, shivering over Robert’s skin like a wave of heat from the winter fireplace. He swallowed, not even noticing at first that the ghost had dropped his title.  
  
“My mother taught me to cower in shadows. You have taught me to survive in the heat of the furnace, Dresden. Treachery and cunning.” His long fingers tightened on the skull.  
  
The ghost gave him a long, slow, feral smile, his dark eyes and heavy bottom lip taking on a different kind of resonance now. “Have I failed, then, to teach you fear?” Dresden lifted a dark eyebrow gently, and Robert quirked the corner of his mouth in reply.  
  
“You cannot hurt me, Dresden.”  
  
But Dresden continued to watch him, the deep brown of his eyes disconcerting. When he finally broke the silence, his voice was very soft. “I _would not_ hurt you, Robert. There is a difference.” A beat, to make certain that the boy had understood him, and he disintegrated into a flow of black and gold-red, and threaded through Robert’s fingers, infusing him with an overwhelming sensation of protectiveness, and soaking his midsection with a not altogether unrelated wash of blooming heat. It was a feeling that he was not entirely unfamiliar with, when he was in the presence of his mentor.  
  
He sat still a moment longer, his eyes narrowed, head canted slightly as he stared off into the middle distance, at the chair where Dresden had been sitting. Barely a whisper escaped him as he mouthed, “What do you know about my mother’s death, my dear Dresden?”  
  
The dry bones made no answer.  
  
  
**Tether**  
  
"How did my mother die?" Robert stood in the doorway, back-lit by candles, his face in shadow. He had just returned from Switzerland—indeed, had just walked in the door, and was still in his greatcoat.  
  
Dresden held up his hands. It was a leap to remember that this lithely built young man of five and twenty had once been a tiny child, but the ghost had a long memory.  
  
“Robert, you can’t force me to reveal anything I don’t wish to without my Name, as you well know. Can we just let the past be the past? How was the Locarno conference?”  
  
“Tedious. How did my mother die?” Robert’s voice was deathly quiet, and as he moved into the room, Dresden caught the fierce glint in his eye. A pale, long-fingered hand moved lovingly over the skull on the table, and Dresden shivered, and sighed. He ran his hand nervously through disheveled hair, and wondered at what point he had lost control of the wizard in front of him. Such was his existence, he supposed. Resigned, he nodded shortly.  
  
“Very well, _Lord Bainbridge_. I am at your command, after all. What would you like to know?” His lip curled in distaste, and Robert looked, for a moment, wide-eyed, and a little taken aback. They had always had a close working relationship, but this was the Voice that Dresden had used for _Lady Bainbridge_. A chill settled over the room. Robert pursed his lips, and then scowled and threw off his greatcoat, taking the skull in his hands and rolling it against his palms before tucking it into his lap as he settled into a chair by the fire. His light brown hair, the envy of every young man and most women he had a chance to come into contact with, caught the firelight in red where the unruly curls escaped their ribbon tie.  
  
Dresden didn’t miss for a moment that Robert had taken up his skull. More often than not when they were spending a night by the fire, Dresden’s skull would end up in Robert’s hands, or his lap. Dresden found the sensation of being held immensely soothing—it resonated through him with the considerable pulse of Robert’s magic like a heartbeat, and he craved the ability to touch Robert in return. But his young master was careful to leave his skull in the library when he went to bed, and he slept out of the reach of what Dresden’s tether would allow. It was rather telling, that young Lord Bainbridge had never fallen asleep in the presence of the ghost, since those few months in his childhood.  
  
Right now, however, the pressure of Robert’s hand felt less comforting and more threatening, especially this close to the fire.  
  
After a moment of silence, he spoke. “I want to know when you will deem me old enough to tell me the truth, Dresden. You have taught me the Ways, and I am on the European Council, as well as in the political circles of the Normals, working for some semblance of peace after this blasted war shakes itself out. You asked about Locarno—they reached a resolution of sorts. It’s terrible for Germany, and I cannot imagine that things will hold. But they tend to think in such short term…” His shoulders slumped, and he gazed into the fire, looking lost. Dresden walked up next to him, and kneeled down, his eyes on his Master. He cleared his throat.  
  
“Things have always been this way, Robert.”  
  
“And you? Have you always been this way?” Their eyes met, and Dresden felt the depth of the man wash over him. He closed his eyes, the heat of Robert’s body soaking through him.  
  
“Do you remember that I convinced you to take me to your room, not so long after we first met?” His voice was quiet—this truth long buried and dusty with the hiding. Robert nodded quietly, his face perfectly still. “From there, I could reach your mother’s room. From there I could invade her Dreaming. I… she did not…I broke her with as little pity as she had shown you.”  
  
Without any change in expression, Robert asked, “How could you invade her Dreaming when she so clearly didn’t trust you?” His hands had stopped their stroking on Dresden’s skull, but hadn’t tightened down, or otherwise filled with the power to char his prison and his existence to ash. He swallowed, and raised his eyebrows slightly.  
  
“She fancied herself in love with me.”  
  
The confession fell between them like a stone into deep water. It took longer for Robert to recover from this, but his poker face was admirably faultless. He pursed his lips, frowning slightly.  
  
“Why? Why did you feel the need to do such a thing?” They were both thinking of what came after—as she had run screaming through the city in a blaze of white fire and had thrown herself into the Seine at the dam junction. Her body had been found a week later, and Dresden had fretted until that day that she was still alive, somewhere in the Undercity.  
  
“To save you and your House, Robert.” Dresden sighed softly, gazing at the fine-fingered hands of his boy. “Destroy me if you will. You have always been my Master.” And he turned away, unable to bear that clear-eyed gaze for another moment. He should not have been asking the question of when he had lost control, but of rather, when he had lost his heart.  
  
The crackle of the fire filled his ears, and the seeping warmth of Robert’s body. Dresden cherished it as if it would be the last thing he felt on this earth. The sound of Robert’s soft voice surprised him.  
  
“Tell me your name.”  
  
The ghost blinked, and flicked his eyes to Robert in disbelief. Robert was watching him with the same green-eyed solemnity that he had when he was just a child, and had Dresden not been kneeling, he would have fallen. “Heimiric," he whispered. "It’s Heimiric of Drežďany. But… I have always gone by Harry.” He shifted, and grinned almost bashfully. “It’s been a while, since anyone used that name.”  
  
Robert marked him for a moment longer, and then nodded. “Harry.” He spoke the name carefully, as if it were a drop of precious elixir on his tongue. With the speaking of it, both man and ghost shivered perceptibly, and the fire flickered and blustered in its grate. Dresden looked at him with a new light in his eye, and Robert gazed back at him, long and deeply. “You will do something for me?”  
  
Dresden could only nod, a new fire burning in his belly. Robert lifted his chin slightly. “Please, should you end up on my bedside table, it would be a kindness if you would practice a little more self-restraint.” He lifted light brown eyebrows, and reached out to stroke the cheek of the ghost, as he had when he was just a child. “I think you’ve rather gone to a lot of trouble with my schooling, to dispose of me in such a dramatic fashion.”  
  
Dresden’s lips quirked, in spite of himself.

  
**Rending**  
  
“Robert, for Diana’s sake, man, where have you b—oh. You’ll pardon me, I’m sure.” Dresden bowed and turned, flustered, clamping down on his wheeling emotions. He did not get far enough.  
  
“Dresden, wait! Come back at once, I insist! Come and meet Aidyn, old man.” Robert sounded effusive, and who was an _old ghost_ , really, to rain on his parade? Dresden straightened his coat and found a smile. He had prepared for this day, of course, and now it was for show. With a sweep of his heel, he turned back to the flushed couple standing expectantly in the doorway.  
  
Well, she was lovely, of course. Russet hair, bright blue eyes that missed nothing. She gave him a tiny bow, and he swept graciously down to the waist, as a good servant should. “My Lady.” How unwelcome _that_ title tasted to his tongue, he could not say to either. She gave him a speculative smile.  
  
“You don’t much like me, do you, Dresden?” Her lips curled around his name, and his was grateful, at least, that she wasn’t calling him Harry. Robert stared at her in shock, his pleased expression vanished in her breach of manners.  
  
Dresden smiled back at her, eyes glinting. “I hardly know you, Lady. I am only wary for my master’s safety.”  
  
Robert, aghast, switched his frown to his ghost. “Dresden! I assure you--!”  
  
“It is a noble thing indeed, your love for him. Robert tells me you have kept him safe more times than he can count. I intend to bolster his defenses, not weaken them.” Her eyes blazed, her expression determined, and for a moment, Dresden was inclined to believe her. He cocked his head, while Robert sputtered ineffectually between them.  
  
“Now really, I am _right here_.”  
  
They both ignored him, although she did place a placating hand on his arm. Dresden narrowed his eyes. “How can I be certain that you have his best intentions at heart?”  
  
“I think I should be the judge of that! Dresden--!” Robert was starting to become genuinely angry, but Dresden shut him out, just for another moment, staring intently at Aidyn. She lifted her chin.  
  
“No one ever knows for certain, Dresden. Robert’s right. He trusts me, and I, him. It’s something you don’t understand, but you must learn. Humans don’t have the luxury of knowing anything for certain.”  
  
Dresden started as if he had been slapped. His expression twisted in pain, and he looked away. “Very well,” he said quietly. “Robert, my lady… I bid you good night.” He vanished too quickly to hear anything from Robert but an ineffectual, “Dresden…”  
  
How long he sat in his skull listening over and over to Aidyn’s last words, he knew not. It must have been hours before he felt warm hands on his skull, and a whispered summons. “Harry, come out, please.”  
  
He came out, hoping for the cover of darkness. They were in the library, and the sun was shining. Harry sighed, and hung his head. “Congratulations, Robert. She’s a lovely—“  
  
“She didn’t mean it, Harry,” Robert said quietly. “She doesn’t know you like… like I do.” Harry’s skull was in his hands, and the heat washed slowly through him, delicious and painful.  
  
Harry ached, and couldn’t find a wall to shelter himself. “Didn’t mean to imply that I’m not human, you mean? Well, she’s right. I’m not.” He turned his back to Robert, so that he wouldn’t see the grimace of grief as he attempted to get himself under control. “May I go now?”  
  
“Harry…” Robert sighed. “Yes, of course.”  
  
The wash of black fire flooded over his hands and into the skull, leaving only a sense of terrible loss behind.  
  
  
**Collapse**  
  
“Harry! God’s wounds, Harry!!” Robert came crashing down into the basement, his arms holding a bundle of rags. Harry leapt out of his skull as if he’d been shot, taking in his lord’s wild appearance—his curling, prematurely salt-and-pepper hair was caked with dirt and blood and his suit coat was torn open in the back and across one leg. He was bleeding from at least three large wounds and limping, and there was a sound of desperation in his voice that Harry had never heard before.  
  
“Blood and ashes, Robert! What happened?” But Robert didn’t answer; just cleared off the lab table with a sweep of his encumbered arms and set the rag bundle down on it. With a horrified jerk of recognition, Harry realized the bundle was Aidyn, Robert’s wife. Her head lolled to the side and her mouth opened slackly, and Harry knew immediately that she was beyond saving. But Robert was tearing off his jacket and then his shirt, wiping at the blood seeping from the nasty-looking wounds in his side and across his chest with the cloth.  
  
“You will help me, Dresden. You will help me bring her back.” His clear green eyes focused on Harry, and there was a maniacal cast there that Harry hadn’t seen since he had last cast his eyes on Lady Bainbridge, just before Mab had taken her. A stark chill froze him where he stood. Robert tore his eyes from Harry and gazed back down to his wife. “I shall have you back, my love.”  
  
“I will not do this, my Lord Robert,” Harry said quietly. “Love… it’s not the same when it comes back, you know. Crossing over damages people… irrevocably.”  
  
Robert turned on him, coldly. “You will do what I say you will do, Heimiric of Drežďany.” His mouth, normally so mobile and tender, was set in a snarl. Harry felt the pull of the unbending geas against his manifestation, tugging at the threads of his soul, and he resisted with some pain.  
  
“I will not, Robert.” he replied, quietly.” Robert blinked at him, looking lost, as if someone had told him that he could not have the one thing that he always knew was his. Harry fought to keep his expression from showing the terrible grief that he felt. “I was told, long ago, to teach you the Ways. This is the last. Death follows life, and even we cannot bend from that path, my darling child. It is the Way of all things, the flow of time. You may use the geas to tear me apart, my lord, but I cannot help you break the world.” He fell silent.  
  
Robert continued to stare at him, and then, in a horrifying breach of walls, his face crumpled, and he cried out in bitter grief. “Then get out! Get out, if you will not help me, get out!!” Harry reached from him, and then, tears rolling down his own cheeks, he retreated into his skull to wait.  
  
It happened sooner than he thought it would. Robert, weakened from the loss of blood and exhausted from battle and grief, fell asleep amidst piles of books on the floor of the lab about twelve hours after he had first brought his dead wife down the stairs. And for the first time in their entire relationship since early childhood, he was within reach of the Dreaming.  
  
Harry moved slowly, so as not to wake the grieving wizard. Aidyn, Robert’s precious flame, lay broken on the table above. She had been a fine woman, and Harry had approved as much as any man could approved of someone he loved marrying someone else. Once they had gotten back to England, Robert had been the darling of wizarding society—feared because of his name, and awed because of his fantastic power and his charm. The death of his mother was a fireside tale, and all who heard it raised their glasses a little higher and commiserated on the foolishness of making bargains with fairies. No one—not even Robert even suspected that he had been the intended sacrifice, and for that Harry was pleased. The boy had enough grief in his life.  
  
And now this. Aidyn had been his pillar of light, and a fierce fighter—fast on the evocation in tight corners. She could whip up a defensive spell on the fly like no one Harry had ever seen. What they had faced together, Harry knew not, but he was certain Robert would blame himself.  
  
That was simply unacceptable, because Harry could not live without Robert.  
  
Slowly, the ghost sank into his lord, whispering a silent prayer that their long association meant that Robert would not reject him outright. The many barriers set up against possession, even for the dreaming mind, ensured that it could not happen between strange souls. Harry closed his eyes, searching for the doorway, prodding gently in this intimate embrace… and found it open. Gentle soul, his Robert. “I love you, my Lord…” he murmured as he nudged through.  
  
A soft hillside, dark. On its crest, a small boy with pure silver hair falling down his back, naked to the waist and bloody with cuts and bruises was holding a dead kitten gently to his chest. Harry walked to him and kneeled down. Robert turned to him, his green eyes startling in such a pale face, and Harry realized that it was because the boy had no defenses up. He was seeing the pure essence of his master, and that made him want to tuck the child into his arms and not ever let go. The child stayed him by lifting the tiny broken kitten in both his hands, tears leaking freely from his eyes. “Bring it back, Harry… please, bring it back…”  
  
Tears started out of Harry’s eyes; much to his astonishment, he wept over the tiny kitten, and reached up a hand to share the feather-like burden. The little thing was surprisingly heavy under his hand, and he hefted it for his lord, his throat tight. He had to swallow twice before he found his voice.  
  
“I’m so sorry, my love. She can’t come back. We have to let her go.”  
  
Robert’s face fell, his little voice choking. He cried into the ground for a moment, as the weight of the little kitten increased. Harry’s arms began to tremble, but he hung on. “But, Harry, I miss her! I want her back! She _belongs_ to me…”  
  
“I know… I know. Shhh, my love. Set her down. Let her go. We shall lay her to rest, and you can come back here and visit her. She will never really be gone, as long as you carry her in your heart.” Harry’s voice was soft, but firm.  
  
“I want her back, Harry.” Harry blinked, and Robert was suddenly older—his determination showing in the strength of his back and the muscle of his arms and abdomen. Harry narrowed his eyes, and decided to play his last—his only card.  
  
“You cannot have us both, Robert. I will not hold her for you.” He glanced down at the dead kitten in his hands, which was now almost impossibly heavy. “I would not ask you to make such a decision but that I love you beyond anything I have ever known, my lord, and I am here, trying to save your life, again.”  
  
Robert stared at him for a long time, tears coursing down his cheeks, and Harry gazed steadily back, all too aware of the compassion in his eyes. Finally, the burden eased as Robert sank the kitten slowly to the ground. As soon as the pathetic little thing settled in the grass, it sank beneath and was swallowed up. They both watched the place where it had vanished for a long while, their hands intertwined. And then, much to Harry’s relief, Robert folded into Harry’s arms, gently weeping.  
  
After a moment, Robert began murmuring against Harry’s throat, his words spilling out as if in a torrent. “I hate this war, Harry… I hate it… she didn’t have a chance against the German squad like that, and all that we were trying to do at…at the bunker has been _lost_ , Harry, gods! Harry! I thought we had escaped into the Nevernever in time, but no… no… even on Titiana’s horses we could not fly fast enough…”  
  
Alarmed, Harry clutched at Robert’s shoulder. “Titiana’s horses? Robert, you made no bargain?”  
  
Glass-green eyes blinked at him, and now Robert was fully grown, his silver hair falling in soft waves away from his face. Harry stroked his fingers through it, treasuring its softness, and Robert closed his eyes, his grief turning a moment to thoughtfulness. “I might have promised her something,” he admitted.  
  
“Oh, Robert,” Harry moaned. “My love, for all the world, to have saved you from one bargain and to have you throw yourself into another…” He closed his eyes, and a tear fell down his cheek, splashing onto Robert’s mouth. “What did you promise her?”  
  
“A favor of equal value,” he said dismissively, turning to something of more immediate weight. “Harry, what did you call me?” Harry opened his eyes and gazed at his master, their faces inches apart, Robert’s still torn in grief, but now tinged with curiosity as well. Harry struggled to remember.  
  
“My lord. I called you my lord, as I always do, Robert. You have quite torn me up tonight, you know.”  
  
A small smile quirked Robert’s bow-shaped lips. “No, you didn’t. You called me ‘my love.’ And you’re in my Dreaming, Harry.”  
  
Harry cocked his head slightly. “Did I? Am I?” His arms tightened around Robert’s body. “If that’s true, it’s only because you let me in, my lord.”  
  
“So I must have,” he acknowledged. His hands found Harry’s shoulders, his eyes closing slowly.  
  
“Tell me to go, and I will,” Harry whispered, his voice breaking slightly. He memorized the feel of Robert’s body against his, just in case this was his last moment, but Robert shook his head gently.  
  
“Don’t go, Harry.” And he shifted, falling slowly down against the soft hillside. Harry followed him down, nestling against him. Wrapping both arms around his beloved master, he pulled Robert into the curve of his body, and Robert tucked his forehead into the arch of Harry’s neck.  
  
It was moments later that Robert finally let go the tight hold on his grief and wept, and Harry rocked him softly, and whispered into his hair. “I know, I know, my love…”  
  
When he kissed Robert’s forehead, his lips did not ghost through.

 

 **The Wyrd**  
  
"Did it work for you, Bob?" The tall, dark-haired ghost stood completely in shadow, dressed in a cascade of black leather from shoulder to floor. His gentle eyes gleamed from the darkness.  
  
Robert sighed and ran his fingers through his long rain-damp silver hair, curling it around the nape of his neck impatiently. “If by ‘work’ you mean everybody _lived_ , then yes, it did, Harry. Could you please not call me that?"  
  
The gleam of teeth joined the gleam of eyes. “Is that a command, my lord?” The ghost’s voice was soft, but Robert heard the grumbly edges of a purr mixed in. He scowled.  
  
“Insufferable ghost. Of course it’s not.” Robert set down his worn bag and staff by the door and shook out his cloak, hanging it on the hook by the ward-mirror. “Would you mind coming out where I can see you, or have you contracted a case of shyness while I was gone today?”  
  
“You really should take me out more, Robert. I get... lonely.” He walked out of the corner he had been occupying and into the half-light of the candlelit lab, a soft smile on his lips. Robert smiled fondly at him, his hand resting on the ancient pocked and carved skull that held a place of honor in the lab. Harry blinked at the touch of fingertips on the parietal bone, his lush bottom lip falling open slightly. “Or you could just take me to bed with you. That would be acceptable as well.”  
  
Their eyes met for a moment. Robert’s hand found the gash in the back of the skull, wedge-shaped and brittle around the edges. His fingers dipped inside, into the cavity of the bone, and Harry closed his eyes, his mouth rounded, a small moan escaping his lips. If possible, his eyes darkened even more, and he shook his head like a wild thing, as if to clear it. He advanced on Robert, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips, and Robert did not fall back.  
  
“Harry, you know the condition I set.” Robert stroked his hand idly over the skull, his gentle fingers drifting over each intimate crevice. His heart might have been pounding, but one would have needed to touch him to know it.  
  
Harry shook his head slowly, his mouth open just enough to show the gleam of teeth. “And you know mine. That sort of confession will take place only within the Dreaming, my lord.”  
  
“And if it isn’t to my liking, I am bound up with you in possession of my body and mind, Dresden.” Robert gave him a small frown. “I don’t like that.”  
  
Harry winced in frustration. “You have my _name_ , Robert. What more do you want? You will have to trust me, after all.” With that, he sank to his knees, and ghosted his mouth through Robert’s cock, causing Robert to twitch backwards, his mouth dropping open in shock, and beneath that, unmistakable hunger. Harry mouthed Robert through his wool trousers, his icy manifestation a very tactile sensation against the wizard’s sensitive skin. “Tell me to stop, and bind me to silence, my lord.” He could hear harsh breathing above him, and he turned up his eyes, pulling himself away. “Tell me to stop…” he whispered.  
  
Robert gazed down at him, looking shaken, gripping the skull with white knuckles. His lips formed words a few times, and reformed them. He shook his head, and then focused on Harry, his eyes shockingly green in the half-light. “Harry… stop calling me ‘lord.’” And a gentle smile followed his words, as he sank down into the floorspace in front of Harry, and nosed his manifestation, sparking a kiss and a flood of light that blinded them both momentarily. “I think it’s late enough to go to bed then, don’t you?” Harry nodded slowly, ghosting kisses across Robert’s lips and cheeks and forehead all the while.  
  
* * *  
The Dreaming took them to a very different place than that first hillside, for which they were both grateful. Robert lifted his eyes to take in their surroundings, and smiled slightly. “Do you remember this place, Harry?”  
  
Harry nodded. It’s not far from Paris, if my recollections serve me. On the banks of the Seine. I remember a rather jostled trip on horseback…?” He grinned, and Robert smiled back at him.  
  
“Of course, it’s nothing like this now. All built up—riverfront property being what it is, now. The world has changed more in the last twenty-five years than it has in the preceding three-quarters of a century.” He shrugged. “Now we will see what the next hundred years will bring.” He knelt, and then stretched out on the soft grass, his lean body hidden completely even two feet away. Harry stood over him for a moment, and then shrugged out of his heavy duster, laying it on the ground beside Robert. His vest followed, and then his heavy silk button-down. Robert watched him impassively, but did not turn away, his eyes keen.  
  
Harry sat gracefully down on the pile of discarded clothes and unlaced his boots, tugging them off, and setting them behind him. He tugged off his socks, tossing them back at the boots, and heaved a great sigh. Then, without glancing back at Robert, he flopped onto his stomach, his hips level with Robert’s head, and Robert’s hips level with his. With a wicked smile, he curled up onto his side and cast his gaze back at his now-rather-discomfited master, who had an excellent view of his lower abdomen and the bulge in his trousers.  
  
Robert narrowed his eyes at Harry. “One would think you had a few less zeroes in your age, Dresden.” But the corners of his mouth were trying to turn up against his will. “Don’t you have a story to tell?”  
  
At this, Harry couldn’t contain his laugh. “A story that you didn’t want to hear, but now it’s preferable to my challenging your orientation, my dear lord Robert?”  
  
Robert cast him an amused eyebrow. “Which conversation would you prefer to have interrupted, my dear lord Ghost?” And he threw a firm hand over Harry’s hip, shifted his body, and brought his mouth up against Harry’s cock. Even with a layer of wool trousers in the way, Harry bucked, startled, at the heat of Robert’s mouth and the soft bristle of his beard scratching against his cock head. He mouthed the hard shaft thoroughly through the rough fabric, until Harry choked out a muffled curse.  
  
“Gods, Robert!” With a final, thorough nosing, Robert let him go, and eased back into a reclining elbow, looking pleased with himself. Harry was panting, clear astonishment painted on his face. “Have you been… all this time?”  
  
Robert shook his head, his silver hair glinting in the falling sun. “It’s always been just you, Harry,” he said soberly. “But I’ve… how could I trust you, after my mother?… so I decided that it would be safer to sleep at the opposite end of the house.”  
  
Harry shook his head, reeling, attempting to take it in. “So what changed your mind?”  
  
Robert looked at the ground, his expression twisting to sadness. “When you said tonight, that you get lonely, I realized… I realized that I have been harming more than just myself. It’s been… seven years since Aidyn died, and I haven’t taken another lover. No one seemed at first to measure up to her… and then I realized that I was actually using _you_ as my gauge.” He scratched a pattern in the dirt, and Harry recognized it as perthro, the wyrd.  
  
He cleared his throat. It was time—far past time. His voice came out quietly. “I… em, I lived in Dresden, as you know, around the time of the Crusades. We were plagued, on and off, by legions of knights who would come through various parts of town and beg off the locals. Dresden happened to be a major city between Rome and Lithuania, where the Knights were on their Crusade to convert the Baltic shores to German hands.” He sighed, and rested his head on Robert’s hips, as if in finally telling the story, he was losing his last bastion of strength. Robert threaded a hand through his hair, stroking softly.  
  
“The Knights, Templar or otherwise, were nothing like the storybooks, you realize.” He looked up at Robert, who nodded gently. “They could be noble, or cruel. They were men, and on a hard road. I was a man of two-score years, barely into my prime, and a powerful wizard, but untested and… not wise.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “A young girl was taken in the darkness—I don’t even think I knew her, Robert. I try to remember, but it was so dark. And in my anger for her fear and her youth—not yet fifteen, she later told me—I murdered the man who had attempted to stain her.”  
  
“With magic?” Robert asked quietly. Harry nodded, swallowing. They both took in a momentary breath at this—Harry at the memory and Robert at the implications. “And he was a Templar, wasn’t he?”  
  
“He was. It took me so much time to calm the girl down and get her home that I had not time to make good my escape. My life, of course, was forfeit from the moment I laid hand on him, especially with magic. Of course,” and he smiled, bitterly, “I felt that what I had done was justified. That he should have protected the girl. But my use of magic made me a monster.”  
  
Robert nodded. “And of course, they had their own mage. A holy mage,” he spat out, scornful. Harry raised his eyes, deep brown meeting clear green in understanding.  
  
“They did. They took me to the back room of a filthy inn, and I could not use my magic—I was bound, somehow. And then I was Bound. When next I woke, the old mage was carving runes into my skull, and telling me that he was my new master. But they made one critical mistake.” Harry held up a long index finger, his eyes gleaming.  
  
Robert smiled gently, shaking his head with appreciation. “They didn’t get your Name.”  
  
“And so the story goes. They could not let me out of their sight, because the geas didn’t work properly. I soon found my way into the Dreaming of one of the more gullible… because I am a sweet-talking lad… and that particular band of Knights suffered a deadly case of bad temperament on the road to the Baltic Sea.”  
  
“And so you have left a trail of blood and mayhem behind you, killing off your owners with a delighted sort of glee for hundreds of years.” Robert quirked his lips, his hand turning Harry’s hair into ringlets. Harry dropped his eyes, all of the sudden ashamed beyond imagining.  
  
“Your every instinct told you not to trust me, Robert. And yet, you have let me in. And I have told you a story now that would make even the stoutest hearts run in the other direction.”  
  
But Robert merely smirked at him. “Ah yes… you saved my life as a child—yes, I know, Harry… and then countless times after with your teaching, both magical and with the sword. You talked me out of performing necromancy, thereby not only saving my life from the clutches of the Council but my sanity and the sanity of my poor Aidyn as well. You have snatched me out of the jaws of the Fae—twice-- with your quick thinking, provided me with solutions to a hundred puzzling problems, and on countless nights have listen to me ramble endlessly on topics of a thousand boring derivations, all of which you have heard endlessly before… had you been nursing a secret death wish for me, Harry… well, I am quite of a puzzle to unearth it.” Robert shifted, curling his hips up while still supporting Harry, so that they were curled up together, facing. Harry drew up his own hips to cradle Robert in turn.  
  
“Then… why? Why all the trouble? I don’t understand, Robert. Why have you avoided me all this time?” Harry reached up with his free hand and stroked the short silver beard that graced Robert’s chin. Robert closed his eyes, rueful.  
  
“Ah, Harry, don’t you see… it was never death I was afraid of at all. It may have been what I told you, but… I lied.” He shrugged, looking almost embarrassed.  
  
And suddenly, Harry did see. He saw the child who grew up with a mother who saw him as a convenient sacrifice. He saw the boy, reared by a ghost in an empty house, isolated from contact and left to his own devices by those who feared and mistrusted his family name. He saw the man, giving his hand in marriage to a warrior who didn’t need him, and who died beyond his reach. And he saw the wizard, working always alone, never needing anyone but his ghost. In a flash, he understood what Robert Bainbridge feared most—the one thing that he had never allowed himself to feel.  
  
“And you… feel this, for me?” Harry’s voice was a mere wind’s murmur.  
  
“You are the fixed sun I am in orbit around,” Robert said simply. “We have always been this way… except that now I am no longer afraid to turn my face to you.”  
  
They locked eyes for a long moment, master to servant… and then they were simply man and man, longtime companions who knew each other with extraordinary intimacy. Harry blinked, as if the change had been visual, hooked his fingers gently around Robert’s jaw, and drew himself upward, turning his body so that they lay nose to nose. Robert smiled shyly, and with a trembling hand, touched Harry’s cheek as if for the first time.  
  
A visceral shock rippled through both of their bodies. “How I have longed… to feel your hand…” whispered Harry. He nosed closer, touching Robert’s cheek with his lips, the soft bristle of beard a rough tickle against his sensitive skin. And then, he felt the soft drag of the damp skin of Robert’s lips against his, and he could not keep his eyes open, or his hands away any longer.  
  
Robert cocked his head minutely, placing his lips barely in contact with Harry’s for a moment, just to taste. They brushed together, texture and moisture, and Harry could clearly feel the luxurious dimple in Robert’s upper lip, right in the middle. He gently seized Robert’s top lip in-between his own and sucked gently, and was rewarded with a soft pressure of hips rising against his own. His tongue tasted the warmth of excellent cognac and the rich spice of myrrh and cedar that Robert used to fuel his fires—he was infused with magic, and Harry, desperately, wanted more.  
  
Then, firmly, Robert’s hand slid around the back of his head, and he caught a glimpse of fire in green eyes. “Well and good, Dresden, but when are you going to get around to kissing me?” he murmured, breathless and rough.  
  
“I didn’t want to frighte—“ But the rest of his sentence was lost when Robert gave him a dangerous, wild smile that sent fire blooming through his long-cold veins and crushed their mouths together. His tongue swirled around Harry’s lips and teeth, and Harry sank back and allowed him entry. Robert took advantage, tipping Harry over onto his back, his hand pressing into Harry’s bare shoulder. Weight shifted as Harry surrendered, thinking hazily that being lain against by this man was the most wonderful sensation… but there were cold disks of pearl and soft cloth pressing against his chest and belly where skin should be. He licked at Robert’s tongue and lips, thrusting upwards with his hips, and his hands found the collar of the offending shirt.  
  
And then he had a better idea.  
  
With a quick squeeze of muscle, he trapped Robert’s hips in-between his thighs, slipped his hands through his thickly soft silver hair to hold the back of his neck, and rolled. Robert hit the spread-out leather duster with a sigh and a nip at Harry’s bottom lip. “Wasn’t done with you, Dresden…” he growled.  
  
Harry smiled against him, but otherwise ignored him, sliding a gentle hand under his throat and pushing his head back. It was an immense avowal of Robert’s trust and love for him that he actually relaxed and allowed this, and Harry felt it all the way to his groin. He kissed Robert at the neat line of his beard, scruffing his lips across his jaw, and bit down on the tendons that flexed as Robert swallowed. He dragged his tongue down Robert’s exposed throat, feeling the satisfying thrust and hop of trembling muscle underneath him. Robert’s strong fingers carded through Harry’s thick hair and across his back. Harry purred against him, spreading his thighs so that they fell to either side of Robert’s hips in a wanton sprawl, and set his teeth under the highest button on Robert’s collar.  
  
He pulled with a sharp upward tug, and the silk thread snapped. Robert gasped. “Blood and ashes, man…” Harry took hold of another button, and—snap! He chuckled darkly, spitting it out to the side, and nosed the folds of Robert’s shirt apart, but still could not reach more than an inch of skin. Growling, he snapped off another button, while Robert’s breathing grew increasingly erratic underneath him. Taking one half of the shirt in his hand, and the other in his teeth, Harry tore the rest of the placard right through, and then dove in to the feast of pale skin underneath him now, as Robert gave a soft, shuddering moan. He felt a hot, wet lick at his ear as the wizard levered them both off the ground, and Harry took the opportunity to divest him completely of his shirt.  
  
For a wild moment, they wrestled for control of the kiss—Robert’s hands were clasped in Harry’s thick, soft-wool hair and Harry’s arms were tight around Robert’s back, hands clasping and unclasping, frantic to touch as much skin as possible, to make up for all the time he had watched the man walk away from him. And then Robert bit down hard enough on Harry’s chin to make him remember pain, and he drew back sharply, eyes black and endless. Robert licked the bite, smiling slightly, eyes lost.  
  
“How much time do you think we have, Harry?” he whispered. “One hour, maybe half an hour after that? One night I will explore you inch by inch… but tonight I want you to fuck me… own me, Dresden.” Harry arched at his words, his eyes at half-mast, lips already searching for Robert’s throat to taste again. “You always have… been my master…” Harry’s teeth closed down against his jugular, cutting off any more words.  
  
They fell together, onto the spread of leather, silk, and grass and earth. “I am… yours to command, my lord.” Robert chuckled underneath him, and he grinned back, diving now for the clasp of Robert’s trousers.  
  
“Are you going to use your teeth, Dresden?” Robert half-mocked at him Harry nosed his way down, able to feel much through the fine material beyond Robert’s straining erection. He traced the powerful muscle and tendon that years of training in the saddle and at the blade had created, and the deep delineation between hip and thigh.  
  
“What would please you, Robert?” he murmured. But his hands came up of their own accord, stroking the deep flush of heat through the wool even as he undid the clasp and button fly. Robert groaned as Harry’s hands found his cock, his hips bucking upwards as his body fell back.  
  
“Harry…” he whispered. “Harry, please…” Harry could not find even the words to reply, or to voice the trembling in his stomach and the pounding of his heart as he took his lord—finally—to his lips.  
  
Salt, musk, and heat were the first sensations he registered, and the trembling of thighs, but he was uncertain who was shaking whom, because he was certain that _he_ was shaking. He moaned, and sucked lightly on the head as he clasped the shaft in his hand, stroking in time to Robert’s rolling hips. Yes, gods… yes… Harry sank deeper, relaxing and tugging back and forth, his throat muscles taking over where his lips could no longer touch. He was, he realized, several inches from his goal of nosing the glinting silver curls at the base of Robert’s cock, and a whirl in his brain took a minute to awe over what it would be like to feel this magnificent cock inside him. He rolled his tongue around, delighted to feel Robert shuddering beneath him, and stroked him, one hand on his abdomen, silken skin now beaded with sweat.  
  
As Robert arched and keened his name softly, Harry let go his grip on Robert’s cock with his hand, swallowing even more deeply to make up for the loss, and ran both hands underneath his lord’s back, stroking down to firm, muscular buttocks. Robert reached out a hand and smoothed his fingertips over Harry’s cheeks before threading his fingers through the thick dark hair at his temples and tugging gently, urgently. Harry wanted to be in two places at once—licking and sucking Robert’s cock, spiraling down until his nosetip grazed curls and he swallowed the roaring fire of orgasm, and pressing his lord into the earth, his own erection buried deep in the flesh that he was stroking now—gods!! He moaned, and his fingertips stroked in-between Robert’s cheeks to his opening. Robert writhed, breath hitching, and Harry’s own arousal at once became too demanding to ignore.  
  
Harry gave Robert’s cock one last lick from head to base and rose up slightly so that he could gaze down on the beautiful vision of Robert Bainbridge, his lord and master, rumpled and flushed, naked to slightly below the waist, erection shining and swollen and wreathed in silver curls, and looking at him with storm-darkened eyes. Robert smiled lazily at him, moistening his lips with a slow lick of his tongue. “You look uncomfortable, Dresden. Pants too tight?”  
  
Harry smirked at him, the casualness of his expression ruined by eyes a little too wide, lips flushed and parted. “Help a gentleman out, would you?” Robert raised a gentle eyebrow, but his hands were moving almost immediately to the hook and eye closure. At his touch, Harry jumped, and Robert’s smile widened. He sucked in a breath to calm himself—he wanted this to last a good long while. Robert was not helping—he was stroking Harry through the leather, and then, as he uncovered him and peeled the pants back, he took Harry in hand and smoothed the beading pre-cum all around the uncircumcised head. Harry was bowed over Robert, helpless, trying to concentrate on anything but the intense sensation of his cock in Robert’s hands. He gripped Robert’s shoulder. “Please… I won’t last long under your hand, love…”  
  
Robert’s eyes closed slowly and opened again, but if anything, his smirk grew even more smug. His hands slid down his own abdomen to his trousers and he drew up his knees and kicked off his pants, having at some point tugged off both socks and shoes. Entranced, Harry sank down over his pale alabaster skin, now free from obstruction, and kissed and licked his way over the flats and curves of muscle of Robert’s thighs, his nose tickled by the light dusting of hair. Robert grasped at his hair again, tugging more urgently. “Time, Dresden… damn the clock for ticking…” he panted, regret lacing his voice. Harry nodded, their eyes meeting softly.  
  
In a wash of echoes, Harry lay his hands on velvet skin and turned Robert onto his stomach, sliding both hands underneath so that he could tug him upwards from the waist. He sank down against Robert, kissing and licking every shadowed curve as Robert’s muscles bunched and coiled underneath him. His tongue carefully found what he had been looking for all along—the second half of his desire, and gently, giving Robert ample warning, he at first stroked Robert’s opening with a finger, pressing inward slightly, and then licked against it.  
  
Robert’s reaction was both immediate and gratifying. “Dresden, gods!” Every muscle in the man’s body spasmed, and Harry had to readjust his grip in order to roll his tongue more thoroughly around the ridged ring of muscle that would let him in to pleasure his lover. He reached around and took Robert’s cock in his hand, the tip leaking pre-cum, and slicked it over his fingers, bringing them back add to the lubrication. Then he took his own cock in hand, shaking slightly, and pressed it in, gently. Robert gasped in either surprise or pain, at first, but pushed steadily back against Harry. “Want you… so much. Have wanted you, Harry… have loved you…” His rich baritone, which had begun so strong, faded to a whisper at the end. Harry kissed him, as far up his spine as he could reach, as his cock slid home. Both men groaned in pure heated satisfaction. And Harry, his painful arousal now surrounded by tight heat, nearly passed out from the ecstasy.  
  
His body took over where his mind had failed him, hips rolling slowly at first as he straightened out his back and arched away from Robert, finding the right angle to begin a hard rhythm. At first, Robert just rocked with him, soft moans escaping him, and then, as Harry lifted him slightly, he bucked and keened sharply, an inarticulate throat noise. “I was feeling… for that,” Harry panted roughly, and he set into a steady cadence, his hips fetching smartly up against the backs of Robert’s muscled thighs.  
  
Robert’s long fingers were tangled in Harry’s leather duster and silk shirt, tightening, searching for purchase so that he could push back, and his eyes were closed in pure, intense concentration. Harry watched him, memorized him, knew that never in his life would he ever see anything so beautiful… and then the deep dark fire-magic of orgasm began to steal all power of thought from him, and he reached around and took Robert’s cock in his hand, stroking with the same intense rhythm that he thrust with.  
  
For a long, stolen age, everything ceased to be but the two of them, coupled together, olive skin met to ivory, key to lock. Whether it was an effect of the Dreaming or if it would have happened pressed down against a feather mattress in a flat off Northumberland, Harry could close his eyes and taste the harsh breathing of the man he loved more than his own existence… could feel the blaze of green in the sly looks that Robert cast on him in a moment of coyness… Harry whispered a prayer, that he would walk again the roads of life, side by side with this man. “Robert… Robert… I love you…I _will be with you_ …” he keened, his voice breaking.  
  
Robert roared out then, fountaining the trance into the heavens, his back arching down as his head lifted outward like a lion’s. Hot seed spilled into Harry’s hand and out onto the clothes, coat, and ground below. Every muscle tightened and flexed, and Harry was drawn forward, his cock tugged unmercifully into orgasm with an explosion of blinding stars and luscious warmth . He shuddered and his body folded over, lips meeting Robert’s slick skin as his hips spasmed over and over, recoiling with aftershock.  
  
Collapse. Harry panted softly into the nape of Robert’s neck, and then lifted himself up as that position became immediately intolerable, stretching things that were not supposed to be stretched. Gently, he worked his exhausted erection out of Robert’s body, as Robert straightened out under him, easing cramped muscles. Even at cross-purposes, they managed to get comfortably tangled up with each other and relaxed against the pile of damp grassy clothing. Harry found himself curled up against the breast of his lord, and nosed the long line of hard muscle there, his forehead sticking with sweat. Robert raised his hand and smoothed back Harry’s hair. His hair was thick with curls, and thundercloud-grey where the perspiration had soaked it through. He smiled, and there was no trace of pretense or politics in it. Harry had never seen him smile like that.  
  
And then he vanished out of the Dreaming.  
  
  
  
**Reprisal**  
  
“You would sacrifice everything… all I’ve worked for…” But Harry could hardly keep up without being dragged by the tugging geas of his prison. He ran rather than suffer that humiliation. Robert saved all of his breath for running. They reached the intersection of drainwater channel and narrow tunnel, and paused for a moment so that Robert could check his handwritten map. The echoes of the Politzei had been left far behind them, and the Undercity of Dresden was quiet now. “You know, so much of this was bombed… the church was completely destroyed. It’s probably not even there, Robert.”  
  
Robert turned to him with immense longsuffering. “And if it’s not, we’ll simply go home and return to the way we have been. And I will die, and pass your skull to some likely-looking wizard whom you’ve taken a fancy to, and that will be the end of our history together.” His eyes flashed in the darkness.  
  
“Don’t talk like that, Robert… I hate it when you—“  
  
“Repeat the obvious?” Robert raised silver eyebrows. “I understand that I am relatively young for a wizard now, Harry. But if there is any chance… any chance at all of bringing you out of this unjust sentence… You know, you might choose not to stay with me,” he finished quietly.  
  
Harry stared at him, and then smirked. “You’ve been listening to all that freedom propaganda on the radio, haven’t you?”  
  
But Robert just sighed. “I have come to loathe war. Viet Nam is a terrible mistake. The war against Hitler we had to fight—there was a real question of world domination at stake. And now, we have children in the streets who refuse to fight for their country, and who stick flowers into the gun barrels of soldiers the same age as they are. I don’t understand this world, Harry. Magic seems to mean less and less.” He bowed his head, running his fingers through his silver curls. Harry ached to hold him. He scowled at the floor, and then realized that what he was fighting wasn't Robert at all. He shook his head to clear it. Magic and meaning had nothing to do with it-- what they were both at the mercy of-- was despair. And damned if he was going to allow that old enemy a foothold here.  
  
“Bob?” Robert gave him a wary smile. “Have you ever been to a baseball game?” He smiled hopefully, and received a tiny smile in return, and a headshake. “Sometimes when you’re gone, I turn on the radio, and listen to the Yankees play? And… I want you to take me to a game, Bob.”  
  
Robert studied him for a moment in silence, eyes narrowed. “In America.” Harry nodded. “Are you giving me your permission, then, to continue the search for your bones, Dresden?”  
  
Harry ran his fingers through his hair, and grinned darkly. “Only if you’re a Yankees fan.”  
  
Robert puffed out his cheeks, and gave Harry a look of sheer incredulity. The darkness swallowed them up.  
  
* * *  
  
“Mays is waiting on second, Alou on third… looking good for the Giants here at Candlestick Park. Here comes Willie McCovey, ladies and gents, to the plate.  
  
Surprising that the Yankees would let Terry stay up against him. And…. batter up! McCovey swings! Hit! Oh, it’s going over! Richardson is at the fence, but he’s not position—  
  
Wait! Wait, folks, he’s reached out, and—I can’t believe it! Richardson caught that ball! Third out! The Yankees win the 1962 World Series, 1-0!! I can’t believe it! It’s a miracle!... Oh my God, it’s a miracle!”  
  
* * *  
  
Harry grunted as Robert grasped his hair and tugged him back firmly. “That was cheating, Dresden,” he purred into Harry’s ear. Harry chuffed out a triumphant laugh, breathless but unbowed.  
  
“Shouldn’t have bet against the Yankees, Robert! Hey! Pants!” Robert stripped him one-handed, holding him down with the other still laced in his hair, pressing him to their feather mattress. “I didn’t have anything to do with that! You know my wind evocation isn’t precision work like—gods, Robert! Oh, gods!” Robert pressed a second finger in, smoothing the aloe-based lubricant around all sides of the tight ring of muscle. Harry relaxed under him, completely at ease despite his protestations, and Robert leaned down and bit his shoulder blade, and the nape of his neck. Harry tried to writhe around and grasp at him, but Robert had the advantage of leverage. Just to be certain, he planted a knee in the middle of Harry’s back.  
  
“None of that, old man.” With fingers still slick from the aloe, he worked the button on his pants, and tugged them down , freeing his heavy erection with a moan. Harry struggled under him, and he smirked. “I rather like America, Dresden. Levis are a wonderful invention.”  
  
Harry writhed under his hands. “Robert, gods, I’ve wanted to unbutton you all day, you look so damn good in those. We had half of San Francisco follow us to the trolley, you know…”  
  
Robert scoffed. “It was your ass they wanted, love. Too bad I don’t share.” He placed the head of his cock at Harry’s entrance and inched his way in, aching, eyes closed. Harry arched his back, clutching at Robert’s hand still in his hair, and they locked fingers. The triumph was unmistakable in each man’s eyes, and their shared magic threaded through them both, binding with unbreakable threads of fire.  
  
  
* * *  
  
Despair scratched morosely at the door, and was ignored.


End file.
